Sant Pere Pescador river Fluvia

Sant Pere Pescador is a small town situated between L'Escala and Roses on the banks of the River Fluvia, not quite on the coast itself. The northern side of the Fluvia runs into the Aiguamolls d'Emporda - a vast wetlands reserve for wild birds including storks and flamingoes. The southern side of the river connects to the long broad beach that carries on for about 7km down past Sant Marti d'Empuries. The area is quite flat with lots of campsites and not much habitation otherwise. More inland, the countryside is flat with expanses of espallier orchards and fruit farms.

We parked just outside the town of Sant Pere Pescador, close to a tourist information centre just before the bridge across the river into town. For this visit we didn't go into Sant Pere Pescador itself as we were more interested in the coastal scenery just south of El Fluvia - the north side is the Aiguamolls d'Emporda wetlands bird sanctuary.

The path was then very easy to follow and entirely flat the whole way around. The day was a little overcast and greyish days with low scenery don't make for the best photos. We walk firstly just following the river which is actually quite wide and in fact, with the reeds in the water, the birds and the low trees at times it felt like we could have been walking in the Fens or the East Anglian coast.

The main walk out along the river we could see cormorants on the water and collections of anglers parked and fishing on the other side of the river. A queue of stand-up paddle-boarders on the river was the only sign of tourist type activities, though I guess in summer the area will be much busier and the whole area is full of campsites.

The river path eventually runs past fields of low sandy dunes with beach vegetation of grasses and low shrubs before reaching the beach where the Fluvia meets the sea (the Gola). A small viewing platform allows you to get about 3m above the height of the land and though it doesn't sound much, because of the low level of the ground, the extra height opens up views to Roses and out to the Pyrenees in the background as well as providing vistas back along the river to Sant Pere.

The beach itself is long and broad - it runs 7-8km straight down towards Sant Marti d'Empuries - with soft sand underfoot. The winter weather creates undulations in the sand so as we walk along the beach we're continually going up and down and with occasional soft patches, the walking is harder work than we expected. We're not the only ones on the beach, but it is very sparsely populated. A few other Sunday afternoon walker and, ahead of us, someone testing out motorised paragliders taking off, making a short hop along the beach, then landing before repeating the exercise.

The beach runs at the back of a number of campsites, set back a little from the beach. Now, out of season, they are all closed up, but even in the height of summer, the sand is so broad that it would be difficult to imagine that it would get very crowded.

We come off the beach and follow a small path a little closer to the campsites, mainly to get off the sand, then by Camping Amfora we follow a strange wide boulevard past an isolated estate of villas back towards Sant Pere Pescador.

The aim was to see if we could connect to L'Armentera via the Bon Relax estates, but unfortunately the connecting path that we were hoping might exist doesn't exist. So instead we wander through the villas and strange set of high rise blocks of the Bon Relax estate. These are the high rise blocks that can be seen from miles away and feel totally out of place in what otherwise is a low-height area. The estate also feels strangely disconnected - it's not by a town or village, it's not on the sea and there are no other buildings or industry nearby.

The path from Bon Relax to Sant Pere Pescador goes along the road for a short while and back to the car. For walking, the stretch from the beach to Bon Relax could easily be skipped, just staying on the path closer to the Fluvia.